The Hindu : New Delhi News : A multi-spiced treat of great thrill, some adventure and a little comedy Cinema

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A multi-spiced treat of great thrill, some adventure and a little comedy Cinema

ZIYA US SALAM

MIXING IT UP: This week offers Hollywood at its pliant best in “American Gangster” (left). Bollywood’s “Rama Rama Kya Hai Dramaaa” (right) is quite a disappointment though.

MIXING IT UP: This week offers Hollywood at its pliant best in “American Gangster” (left). Bollywood’s “Rama Rama Kya Hai Dramaaa” (right) is quite a disappointment though.

AMERICAN GANGSTER

(At Satyam, Nehru Place, and other theatres in Delhi and elsewhere)

Ridley Scott teams up with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Throw in a real life drug lord, the mafia wars, the mean streets of New York, and you have the basic ingredients for a thrilling if predictable movie. Nothing less. Nothing more.

No, actually there is something more, much more. And not so pleasant for a man looking for uplifting cinema. In this tale of narcotic drugs and cops even Scott falls prey to easy stereotypes: his drug lord – Denzel Washington in a role he could do from memory – who smuggles heroin from Vietnam hidden in the coffins of brave soldiers is a black guy. He is rich. He is powerful. But he is, in a throwback to the past, on the wrong side of the law. Of course, Scott has his bases covered, as the film is based on a real life drug kingpin.

He has a good guy – Russell Crowe – who is a Jew, a bit of an outsider in the cop circles, but a man firm of belief and unimpeachable integrity. He wants to arrest Lucas not only for his drug smuggling but also to expose the link between the drug mafia and corruptible police officers. Ah! The proverbial nice and dependable guy!

The reference points are probably unavoidable here but Scott has a history: Remember how he mixed politics, faith and fiction in “Black Hawk Down” a few years ago? He rankled a few then; he is unlikely to find new admirers with this politically pliant tale now.

But if you are ready to ignore the irritating parallels, “American Gangster”, nominated for a couple of Oscars, is worth your time. Even if it is short on details, it has some riveting shots of the merciless streets of New York, some good car chases, even night clubs and the more human side of tough men. Its grandeur has a darkness that is identifiable.

Scott’s film has a chutzpah that is expected of him. It keeps the adrenaline flowing. It keeps the viewers hooked in a daring cat-and-mouse game between the drug baron and the man in hot pursuit. What it does not quite have is a soul, something that tells you a repeat visit is ok. Fine, though, for an evening out with friends.

TURISTAS

(At Spice PVR, Noida, and other theatres in Delhi and elsewhere)

After our very own “Honeymoon Travels” and “Just Married”, another bus hangs by the cliff on the silver screen. And yet again tourists’ fate hangs in the balance – unlike our Bollywood sagas, John Stockwell’s story is based in Brazil. So his tourists encounter problems of the language. The agony gets aggravated when the hapless tourists are drugged and robbed. They don’t know the lingo. They have no idea of geography. All unt il they find a guide, who in turn, hits his head on the rock while swinging with them!

In between, there is plenty of skin show and avoidable intimacy sequences as the tourists grope around for a way to civilisation. You see, they are marooned in the middle of nowhere, and have to find a way back to the first sign of humanity! But a couple of questions crop up: The tourists in an alien land don’t seem even a tad worried! No road, no cops, nothing. Yet they enjoy themselves in a bar, sleep on the beach! Good eye candy value maybe but a poor ruse!

Stockwell does not help his own cause much: there are long sequences in Portuguese and Spanish which one finds disturbing in an English movie. But if you ignore these shortcomings, one gets a visual feast. The underwater camerawork with fish keeping humans company is splendid. Incredible, says a character. Aptly put.

This film is for moments of leisure: low expectations and a reasonable entertainment quotient.

RAMA RAMA KYA HAI DRAMAAA

(At Delite and other theatres in Delhi and elsewhere)

This is a “drop-in-for-ten-minutes-and-move-out” kind of movie. Not many uncomfortable questions asked, no inconvenient answer expected. A little chuckle here; a little laugh there. Purists can squirm, mediocrity rules the agenda for entertainment here! It is a throwback to the times when amateurism was accepted, when buffoonery could pass off for humour.

It has a leisurely, no, stagnant pace in the guise of a detailed narration. And an assembly of cut-copy-paste sequences, almost each of whom stemming from babudom kind of jokes.

Of its four leading actors, three nurture zero talent. Ashish Choudhary, Neha Dhupia and Amrita Arora are not quite likely to appeal to anyone with their craft. For them, flesh and body is the way forward. Heard of something called soul? Umm….

And poor Rajpal Yadav? Well, he is poor. Saddled with a script that expects him to be a Prince Charming with a dash of humour, he is found out too. It is one thing to carry off a couple of comic sequences and quite another to carry the load of an entire movie on one’s shoulders!

Hey, so much about the actors at the beginning. But what about the film? This comedy of married men struggling to keep their spouses happy is as old as the jokes 40-plus men share over a cigarette and more. Director S. Chandrakaant’s movie never tickles the senses.

He starts with the story of a short man – of course, Rajpal Yadav, who else? – who marries a Kota girl, Neha Dhupia. He is a kind of upper division clerk in a bank whose ambience – and some of the staff members – resembles that of a hip multinational corporation. She a housewife, who munches popcorn, watches TV and practically nurtures boredom.

She has an elderly couple, Anupam Kher, and the outrageously out-of-shape Rati Agnihotri as neighbours. He is henpecked, she, well, never mind. Even Rati is unlikely to know what is she doing here as a neighbour who spends more time in Neha’s place than her own.

Then we have Ashish and Amrita as the other couple. He is a bank manager, she a kind of social butterfly who looks like a 30-year-old and dresses up like a teenager by the beach. All of the guys try to please their wives, the wives suspect their hubbies! Yawn. We have seen that. At times even enjoyed that. But one more time, and that too related in a pedestrian way? No, not this time. Despite an occasional laugh, and a couple of clean jokes, the film does not hold. The pace is not there. The script is weak, the dialogue forgettable.

Drama? Weak and predictable. Music? A couple of songs are thrust, a dance number or two added for visual relief. And acting? Well, when did Rajpal and company act in a film? The characters all sleepwalk through their roles.

They all probably did it to stave off ennui or under-employment. You do one thing: By God, let “Rama…” be. Look for drama elsewhere.

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